Always
by Blood.Stained.Fingers
Summary: One-shot. "Always." Snape didn't know the word, didn't understand the word. Snape only knew it in his own way, his own bitter world, with a dead woman that would never be his. Harry wanted Snape to stop being so self-absorbed. Snape only knew his own failures and his own self-hate and Harry couldn't pity the man who already pitied himself for his own wrong doings.


**Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter.**

**A/N – I always had some issues about Snape's memories in the film and I always felt Harry took them so well. So, I decided to make some changes in Harry's thoughts over the whole thing.**

**Always**

Harry knew that Snape didn't want pity for showing Harry his memories. He was just doing his duty…his task.

He had probably expected Harry to condemn him and for once the insufferable man was right about him.

Harry wanted to pity him, just to spite him, just to make him roll around in his grave (whenever he got one)…but he couldn't help but feel hatred.

_You killed her!_

He wanted to yowl at the walls, shake the portraits and knock over everything. _YOU DID THIS TO HER!_

He snarled at the man who was cradling his mother's corpse.

Crying.

Snape was crying into her hair, rocking her as though shook by her immeasurable lose, like a child.

Like the one _howling_ in the crib behind him.

Screeching in pain and distress as the bright red cut seeped blood and his own mother lay dead before him…and all Snape could do was sob into the woman's hair. The woman he stole from Harry.

James had her, but Snape made sure Harry couldn't.

Harry wanted to have Snape alive in front of him to yell at.

To scream at.

_You as good as did this yourself! You cry over the woman you stole from the world. Like Dudley, if you couldn't have her then no one could! _

_You took my mother from me! _

_You stepped over my dad's corpse as though it was nothing. _

_He died for his family – something you could never do! _

…_You're too selfish…_

Harry kicked at the pile of ash that Voldemort had become, but of course, nothing happened as it was a memory. His foot just swung angrily, pulling at the rest of him as it went.

He snarled at memory Snape, wanted him to take his hands of his mother, wanted him to stop _young Harry_ crying.

He wanted Snape to stop being so self-absorbed, wanted to tell him the differences between Lily and him.

How Lily gave her life for her son.

How Snape crawled through life self-pityingly, grovelingly and self-servingly.

"_Anything._"

Snape didn't know the word, didn't understand the word.

His anything was Lily alive and James and Harry dead

…and all Harry could feel was disgust, Snape was a disgusting man and he wanted to pull him off his mother's corpse.

Wanted him to take his self-pity and self-loathing elsewhere.

He could go and cry in some gutter, he shouldn't be tainting Lily with his putrid and festering nature.

But it was a memory and it had happened.

In front of him as a baby.

Too late to change it.

All Harry knew of Lily was her screaming, green light and blinding pain.

Snape got to know her, got to hug her…left James to rot on the stair case and let Harry scream himself hoarse and sick in his crib, covered in Voldemort's ashes and his own waste.

So, Harry had to die by Voldemort's hand? So be it. What did it matter? Harry wouldn't want to live in a world which Voldemort won, and wouldn't want anyone else to either.

What did he matter?

He put his friends first. The innocent first.

"_Always_."

And it was different, it meant something true and pure. Harry took back the word to make it right again.

Snape only knew that in his own way, his own bitter world, with a dead woman that would never be his.

Snape may have protected him, helped him, given him another (horrid) memory of his mother, but he was no hero.

Just finishing what he started.

Killing off the Potter's because Lily chose them and not him.

Harry wanted to pity Snape.

Wanted to, so badly.

Harry hated Snape and hated him even more for his farce of love.

He didn't know what love was.

He only knew his own failures and his own self-hate and then professed that was something deep and meaningful.

It wasn't. Not for Harry.

Harry couldn't pity Snape.

He couldn't pity the man who already pitied himself for his own wrong doings.

Couldn't pity the murderer of his mother.

**A/N – Once again my love/hate relationship with Snape reappearing. I hate no doubt that Snape **_**thought**_** he loved Lily, but I don't think his version of love was the same as hers or anyone else's in any way.**

**Also, since seeing the film I was always bothered by Snape's reaction to Lily's death – he left her only child – her only injured child to sob himself sick most likely. If he loved Lily as much as he claimed he would have helped her child – surely? Instead, he just sat there cradling her cooling corpse whilst in a structurally unsafe building – grieving he may have been, but that is a step too far. His continual hatred and badgering of Harry throughout his Hogwart's career, to me, only reinforces the point that he thought nothing of Harry's life except for the use Dumbledore had set out for him.**

**I'm sure my response seems a little immature and like I am refusing to see the bigger picture but in the end when you really think of Snape, I know he put his life in danger for Harry many a time but who really mattered to Snape in the end? Lily's memory but also himself. He lived his life in regret for what he had done and kept himself alive just so he could beat himself – and everyone else up about it. If he loved Lily enough he would have at least tried to put his vitriol aside for the sake of her child.**

**In the films he was funny in his cruelty, almost amusing in his pettiness but in the books, he is a horrid man who shouldn't be around developing children – especially abused children like Harry, nervous children like Neville and or attempt to stunt the intellectual growth that was within Hermione. He takes his self-hatred out on everyone around him. Snape may think he loved Lily but it really came across as 'all about Snape and **_**his**_** feelings' – to me at least. …I'll get of my soap box now….**

**I know there are loads of Snape lovers out there with conflicting views and I would love to hear them – not as flames, mind you :P I just find it very interesting.**

**Snape is just too good of a discussion point.**

**Drop a review please? **


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